The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.0325  Thursday, 20 February 2003

[1]     From:   Andrew Murphy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 12:24:13 +0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus

[2]     From:   Huw Griffiths <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 12:45:27 -0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus

[3]     From:   William Proctor Williams <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 10:29:13 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus

[4]     From:   William B. Hunter <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 12:33:46 EDT
        Subj:   The Titus text

[5]     From:   Russell MacKenzie Fehr <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 22:36:23 -0500
        Subj:   Re: Endings of Titus Andronius


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Andrew Murphy <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 12:24:13 +0000
Subject: 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus

As others will doubtless point out, the final four lines of Q2 were
added to the play by someone involved in the printing who thought that
the copy of Q1 that served as the basis for Q2 lacked some text. As Bate
explains in his edition:

'In a remarkable piece of scholarly detective-work, Joseph S. G.  Bolton
demonstrated in 1929 that these [lines] were the result of Q2 being set
from a copy of Q1 in which the bottom of the final two leaves (sigs
K3-4) had been torn away, so the printer had to make up the missing
lines. . . . The tear on the final sheet included the middle of the last
line of the play, the final "Exeunt" and the line which reads "Finis the
Tragedie of Titus Andronicus". The editor of Q2 had no way of knowing
that Q1's "And being dead let birds on her take pittie" was the last
line of the text. He there fore gave the play an extra four lines . . .
depriving it of its powerful close on a rhyme of pity with pity' (pp.
113-4)

Of course, no one could have thought this through at all until 1905,
when a unique copy of the lost Q1 of _Titus_ turned up in Sweden. So:
the additional lines made their way into a lot of editions -- including,
for instance, the Clark & Wright Cambridge text (see vol.  VI, p. 531)

Cheers,
Andrew

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Huw Griffiths <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 12:45:27 -0000
Subject: 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus

I'm sure that it might quite happily be taken as a revision. However,
for my money, it makes a less satisfying ending. The repeated word,
'pity' at the end of Q1 draws our attention back to the ways in which
the word 'pity', together with 'piety', 'pious', 'ruthless' etc.  have
been continually dwelt on in the play. I've never thought of it as
'hokey'!

Huw Griffiths
School of English
University of Leeds

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           William Proctor Williams <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 10:29:13 -0500
Subject: 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.0308 Endings of Titus Andronicus

As it the authenticity of 3.2 of Tit. (the fly-killing scene) I do not
wish to speak.  However, if  you would all like to get out your copies
of the facsimiles of Q1 Tit. (either the Folger or California will do)
and look at the bottoms of  K4r and K4v, and then look at these Q1 and
Q2 passages (sorry that italic has to be removed for this list):

Q1, K4r, TLN 2668-2673

Many a storie hath he told to thee,
And bid thee bare his prettie tales in minde,
And talke of them when he was dead and gone.

 Marcus. How manie thousand times hath these poore lips,
When they were liuing warmd themselues on thine,
Oh now sweete boy giue them their latest kisse,

Q2
Many a matter hath he told to thee,
Meete and agreeing with thine infancie,
In that respect then, like a louing child.
Shed yet some final drops from thy tender spring,
Because kind nature doth require it so,
Friends should associate friends in griefe and use.

K4v, Q1, TLN 2704-2708

And being dead let birds on her take pittie.

Exeunt.

     Finis the Tragedie of Titus Andronicus.

Q2

And so, shall haue like want of pitty.
See iustice done on Aron that damn'd Moore,
By whom our heauie haps had their beginning:
Than afterwards to order well the state,
That like euents may nere it ruinate.

you will see that James Roberts' compositor(s) for Q2 clearly were
working from a copy of Q1 which had a serious defect toward the bottom
of leaf K4 and that instead of getting another copy, the chose to
complete the two pages out of their own heads.  If you look at the point
on either side of leaf K4 where the changes start you can clearly see
that the defect probably obscured the middle bit of TLN 2668 and all of
the balance of K4r.  In the case of K4v, Q1 ends with a slightly shorter
than a normal page but since Roberts' compositors didn't know that they
made up text to fill out a complete page, though they clearly had a
problem with TLN 2704 such as they had had with TLN 2668.  For the top
4/5ths of K4r and K4v Roberts' compositors are remarkably accurate in
following their Q1 copy.

If this is revision it is of a very curious sort.

William Proctor Williams

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           William B. Hunter <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 12:33:46 EDT
Subject:        The Titus text

In response to the questions about the text of TITUS I suggest reading
my analysis of this question in the fall 2002 issue of ANQ: "Heminge and
Condell as Editors of the First Folio," XV (2002), 11-19, especially pp.
12-14.

William B. Hunter

[5]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Russell MacKenzie Fehr <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 19 Feb 2003 22:36:23 -0500
Subject:        Re: Endings of Titus Andronius

The Riverside Shakespeare, I recall, makes the argument that Q2 was
based on a copy of Q1 that had some sort of print damage on the bottom
of the page, and that a sign of that can be found in the
disproportionably large number of word variations between Q1 and Q2. In
addition, noting the fact that Shakespeare tends to end plays with a
couplet, the repetition of "pity" suggests that that should be the
ending, elsewise, why is there a couplet there?

Russell MacKenzie Fehr

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